This blog changed my life. I was on a path of going into research in physics, and I remember somehow finding this blog as an undergrad. It was like I was a sovi

This blog changed my life. I was on a path of going into research in physics, and I remember somehow finding this blog as an undergrad. It was like I was a soviet reading western news. After another year of courses where I began to notice exactly what the author mentioned, string theorists controlling purse strings and research directions, I gave up and left. Finished in applied math and went into programming. Everything I've seen has made me happy I made the switch. I'm boggled that string theory is still as big in the public's mind as it was in the 90s. I'm boggled that instead of listening to Ed Witten himself, now I'm hearing a lot of requests for AI driven applications to help researchers "make sense" of things. I help build tools for them to do these things, but I'm nervous. It reminds me of maps from the not-so-great-ages. No new real detail or information added, no new territories or topographical data, but they certainly became more elaborate and difficult to actually use and understand...but boy did they _look_ impressive. Anyway that's awful and bad analogy is something I wonder about when i look at some modern physics...and math actually but i'm just some dumb guy. Maybe Grothendieck's ideas will save us, maybe we need another, either way it sure feels like we are in a dead zone intellecually and has for about 15-20 years to me. All that's to say, I loved this blog and it had a bigger influence on me and my mind than about 90% of the classes I paid a bunch of money for which I now think were a waste of time, capital, intellectual effort, and overall energy.